Ray-Ban Stories is a failure, but the Meta does not give up

Ray Ban stories they already rank among the weirdest products Meta has released in recent years. Smart glasses from the company of Mark Zuckerberg turned out to be a well-implemented idea, and therefore it is not surprising his resounding failure while maintaining the interest of its customers.

As reported Wall Street Magazine, less than 10% of Ray-Ban Stories sold are used. Which clearly shows that the device fell far short of the expectations placed on Menlo Park.

The aforementioned wearer claims to have accessed a meta-document stating that 300,000 units of smart glasses have been sold since its launch in September 2021 until February 2023. However, the Ray-Ban product only supported about 27,000 monthly active users.

Thus, only 9% of buyers of Ray-Ban Stories used them regularly. Or, to put it another way, 91% of those who bought them decided to leave them abandoned shortly after. The same document states that the percentage of return points was only 13%.

The failure of Ray-Ban Stories

There is no doubt that the numbers are discouraging the Meta. Although the smart glasses market has expanded significantly recently, companies such as Xiaomi and Lenovo have decided to experiment with augmented reality or multimedia content consumption. Bye Ray-Ban Stories have been aiming for a more social user experience since the beginning.by facilitating first-person photo and video capture and integrating home services such as WhatsApp.

However, the failure of Ray-Ban Stories cannot be justified by a possible misguided strategy on the part of Mark Zuckerberg and company. A host of technical issues played a crucial role in explaining why the product did not generate interest among those who decided to try it.

Wall Street Magazine mentions that connection problems And poor autonomy they played a critical role in destroying any chance of success for smart glasses. Though they wouldn’t be the only ones. The failure of voice commands and speakers, as well as the inability to import multimedia content from other devices, would also undermine its commercial effectiveness and retention among the public.

second chance

Despite the initial setback, the Meta was still far from giving up on the Ray-Ban stories. Company I would bet on the launch of the second generation of the device before the end of the year or, at the latest, by the spring of 2024. The new version will improve battery life and camera quality, and there have even been rumors about developing your own virtual assistant.

However, the Californians will continue to promote a user experience similar to the original glasses. It will mean do not include elements of augmented reality or virtual realityto avoid duplication with other Reality Labs projects. In addition, Ray-Ban will offer a wider catalog of designs for the next Stories.

Will this be enough to reactivate the interest of potential users? Will have to see if the price matches. At the moment, it is not known if Meta plans to have the following Ray-Ban stories cost the same as the original ones: $299 in the US and €329 in Europe.